


Hope for the Hopeless

by Darksidekelz



Category: Transformers Animated (2007)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-06-21 12:22:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15557622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darksidekelz/pseuds/Darksidekelz
Summary: (Post-series; Animated Continuity)Megatron's inner circle has fallen, but the newly-instated Sentinel Magnus has only just begun his war on all things Decepticon.  On the streets of Iacon, faction-driven paranoia runs rampant, turning friends and neighbors into bitter foes - after all, anyone could be a Con in hiding.  For ex-Decepticon Drift, however, the new political atmosphere marks the beginning of a long and dreadful nightmare wherein he must keep his true identity a secret at all costs, or else find himself come face-to-face with the horrors that lie in his past.He longs for an escape, but is there any to be found?





	1. An Ex-Decepticon Under Sentinel's Regime

**Author's Note:**

> I just really needed another WiP.
> 
> TFA!Drift/Rodimus is my end game here, but who knows what else might come up along the way. As usual, the rating is prone to change at any time, and graphic violence is not unlikely.
> 
> Otherwise, enjoy!

A flash of metal, a distorted scream, the biting sting of claws in his plating.  Deadlock was fighting for his life, and nothing else mattered. Turmoil fell before his blade, Bitlink, Cyberwind.  He didn’t allow himself the chance to mourn. After all, they weren’t his crewmates, his  _ friends _ any longer.  Something had happened to them, had transformed them into these foul, skeletal beats – monsters that could keep going even with gaping holes forced into their spark chambers.

_ It’s our fault.  It’s all our fault! _

He shot off the grasping claws of a rusty data cable, an appendage he was certain Nightflight hadn’t had before, and scurried up a pile of debris that his newly-legless colleague couldn’t quite pursue him up.  It was only here he allowed himself the chance to catch his breath.

_ Is there anyone else? _

Nightflight had been one of the few unaccounted for crew members left.  But here he was, mindless, sparkless, and clawing his way up the rubble heap, his eyes glowing a hideous violet, his jaw gaping, revealing a long, hooked tongue that shouldn’t have been there.  If he got his way, he would be shoving that thing down Deadlock’s throat, and slurping up Deadlock’s spark through his mouth; he’d seen it happen time and again and again already.

He didn’t know if there was anyone else left alive, and at this point it didn’t matter.  Deadlock didn’t want to become one of these – these undead creatures. He took aim and blew Nightflight’s warped head clean off.  The body fell limp, sliding down the unstable surface before coming to a stop at the bottom of the pile. Deadlock followed after. His current gun only had so much energy left within; Nightflight’s definitely had more, and right now, he needed all of the protection he could get.

Never once dropping his guard, Deadlock began looting his friend’s corpse, pulling a pair of twin photon-pistols, half discharged, before scurrying back up the heap.  Would that be the last of them? Was there anyone else left? How long would he be stranded in this barren wasteland, devoid of all hope?

He didn’t want to know the answer, and so, he pushed all thoughts away, instead choosing to look out over this crumbling, dying world, alert, tense, and waiting for the next attack.  

_ Primus, what have we done? _

~~~

Drift’s eyes flickered online, taking in the site of his widely-empty apartment – the barren grey walls, the glow of the soft, violet lamplight, the few focusing crystals that sat on his bedside table, next to a holo-image of his former master, Yoketron.  Though the crystals were meant to help him calm his spark and clear his head, it was actually the image of Master Yoketron that managed to pull him from the momentary panic of waking.

The long-dead master was the one who had initially taught Drift to control the nightmares in the first place.  When Deadlock, the mech he used to be, first came to the Autobots, the terrors that plagued him in the dark had been much more vivid, jarring, horrific.  In the early days, he hadn’t been able to make it through a single night’s recharge without leaping awake, the ghost imprint of his gun in hand, ready to shoot at enemies that were no longer there.  He had Yoketron to thank for his ability to recharge again, to trust again, to live again. Yoketron had taken him in once the Autobots had deemed him a lost cause, and was the reason he continued to survive to this day.

And yet, despite how far he’d come, right now, he felt no different from the bitter, broken Decepticon grunt he’d been when he’d first arrived.  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d dreamed of that day – the one mission that had killed his loyalty to the cause, and any sliver of reverence he’d held for Megatron and his ideologies.  Then again, it had been a long time since he’d had cause to think of the Decepticons at all.

Drift shook his head, and sat up in his bed, turning his slowly-calming gaze to the empty wall across the way.  His internal chronometer told him that it was still very early in the morning cycle, a time in which most mechs would be found asleep, but Drift didn’t see himself getting any rest in the near future.  Still, there was always meditation.

He folded his long, slender legs beneath himself, laid his hands in his lap, and allowed his optics to flicker offline once more.  Images of his old friends, dead by his hand tried to force their way to the forefront of his mind, their faces warped beyond recognition as they came for him, slashed with their claws, bit with their fangs, but he pushed them aside, forcing a black silence into their place.  He was alone in his room on Cybertron, safe in his solitude; nothing could hurt him now, nothing would dare.

“Help!  Somebody help me!”

_ -Crash- _

Drift started upright, and leapt for the window.  He knew that voice; it belonged to one of his neighbors, a Hovercraft street-sweeper who he never really talked to.  Peering through the slats of his blinds, he could just make out the mech in question, huddled in a ball against a lamppost, while three larger Autobots, whom Drift did not recognize, drew closer.    

Violence was the last thing Drift needed right now, but frag it all, he wasn’t about to ignore a mech in danger.  He bolted across the room, slid through the door, raced down the hallway. He didn’t bother with stairs; who knew how long that little Hovercraft had?  Instead, he leapt straight over the bannister, and to the front grounds of his fourth-floor apartment. His legs didn’t like the strain of the impact very much, but there was enough Decepticon left in his spark to slow his descent, to keep him light in the air, and to keep the worst of the damage at bay.

If he’d had any hope of surprising his opponents with a sneak attack, it was lost in the drama of his entrance.  All three mechs – two trucks and Cybertronian Speedster by the look of it – turned to gape at him with matching looks of bemused surprised, while his neighbor cried out from the ground, “M-Mister Drift?!”

“Who the frag does this mech think he is?” the first Truck laughed, albeit nervously.  Drift responded by zipping in and kicking him in the face. The poor bastard didn’t even know what hit him.  One moment, he was gaping like the rest of his companions, the next he was flying into the wall at his back, releasing a cry of alarm as he impacted with it, and a pitiful groan as he collapsed to the ground afterwards.

The remaining thugs were quick to respond, but they were no match for Drift, Decepticon soldier turned Autobot Cyberninja.  He easily slipped under the second Truck’s punch, spinning around him to kick at the back of his knees; like his companion before him, he fell to the ground with a grating shriek.  No doubt some connectors had been severed by the blow; he’d be lucky to be walking any time soon. The Speedster was even easier to take out. The poor sap put all of his meager weight into a charge attack, which Drift, with his superior mobility, leapt over, leaving the Speedster stumbling straight into the building ahead of him.  Drift finished him off with a sharp kick to the small of his back, trying not to relish in the crack of snapping struts. Those days of gleeful sadism were behind him.

The three thugs lay sprawled across the alley, moaning and clutching at their wounds.  They’d been good and cowed, unlikely to cause any more trouble, but a final telling off didn’t seem like a bad idea.  Drift always had liked pontificating.

“I don’t know what you think you’re doing, ganging up on a mech like that, but like the Pit am I gonna let you get away with that nonsense in my backyard.  Get the frag outta here, you dirty cowards, and don’t you ever let me see your faces again, or next time, it’ll be more than a few struts that I break. Get it?”

Shaken and wide-eyed, the mechs all gave a collected flurry of broken agreements before picking themselves up, and stumbling off into the night, bracing themselves on walls, posts, and even their own damaged frames.  Drift watched over their pathetic retreat in a menacing silence, unwavering until those despicable mechs were at last out of sight. Now it was just Him and the Hovercraft. Drift had never been much of a people person, but it wouldn’t have been very Autobot of him to ignore a mech in pain.  Cautiously, he approached his neighbor and reached out a hand to help him to his feet.

“Are you alright?”

“Y-yeah,” the Hovercraft squeaked.  “Thank you, Mr. Drift. I don’t know what those creeps woulda done to me if you hadn’t shown up.”

“Don’t mention it,” Drift said, keeping his gaze on the ground, hoping to get the hardest part of the rescue over as quickly as possible so that he could get back to his brooding in solitude.  Unfortunately, the rescue-ee seemed inclined to chat.

“I never realized you were so strong!” the Hovercraft continued.  Primus, why was he still talking? “Forgive me for saying, but you don’t really look it.”

_ Nope.  Nope nope nope.   _ Drift had heard similar lines time and again over the years, and it always lead to the same place – a place marked by broken hearts and a further inclination to never be caught dead in the presence of another mech again.  As far as Drift was concerned, it was best to put an end to this line of conversation here and now before it had the chance to get any more awkward. 

“What did those guys want?” he asked, staring off in the direction the thugs had fled in; it also helped him avoid the wide-eyed gaze of just-rescued-by-a-handsome-stranger that his neighbor was currently fixing him with, though the star-struck expression was cut mercifully short by the onset of worry, then straight up fear.  How strange.

“Oh, um . . . it was nothing.”

Drift frowned, returning his attention to the shorter mech and his equally-strange response.  It may well have been nothing, but the evasive way in which Mr. Hovercraft had made the statement implied quite the opposite.  On the other hand, he wasn’t sure just how involved he wanted to get in the affairs of someone who was, rescue or not, essentially a stranger.

“Well, as long as you’re sure,” he said slowly, backing away, until he was at a more cordial distance.  There, that was better. “I just hope they don’t come back later. This neighborhood was supposed to be quiet.  Never thought I’d see an actual mugging go down here of all places.”

The sturdy little mech’s eyes widened, as though he hadn’t considered the possibility, though strangely, his face was quick to fall into a look of resignation.  “Guess there’s not much to do for it. Folks like that are everywhere these days.”

That gave Drift pause.  He wasn’t exactly up to date on his social affairs.  During the day, he maintained Master Yoketron’s nigh-abandoned dojo, and tutored the small handful of dwindling followers who still bothered to show up in Metallikato.  When money got scarce, he’d hit up the underground races, when his fuel supply got low, he’d swing by an energon dispensary, and on the rare occasion in which he needed some worldly trinket or another, he would pay a visit to one of a few back-alley shops.  On the whole, the amount of time he spent outside of either his apartment or the dojo was negligible. And he liked it that way. He wasn’t exactly an Autobot; many of their ways were still strange to him, if not outright distasteful, and the Velocitronian frame they’d stuck him with (the only thing capable of matching the speeds his Jet-coded spark craved) at the very least, stood out in a crowd.  Drift didn’t want to stand out, or even  _ go _ out.  He didn’t want friends.  All he wanted was to hide himself away in some dark hole and try not to think about all the terrible things he’d survived, the terrible things he’d  _ done. _

Of course, Drift didn’t express any of that to this stranger.  Instead, after a too-long pause, he said, “What do you mean, ‘folks like that’?”

“Bigots,” the Hovercraft explained.  His knees at last stopped trembling, as fear gave way to anger.  He glared into Drift’s eyes, his own narrowed, hands on his hips, and steam wafting from his vents.  “Those sick slaggers thought  _ I _ was a Decepticon – can you believe it?”  All at once, the bottom dropped out of Drift’s fuel tanks.  If this was how he reacted at the notion of being mistaken for a Decepticon, how would he respond if he knew exactly who it was he was talking to?

“I’m not a Decepticon!” he continued.  “Yeah, I’ve been critical of some of Sentinel’s policies, but that doesn’t mean a thing.  Pit, we’re  _ supposed _ to be critical of our leaders; that’s our right as Autobots – it sets us apart from those Con creeps.”  

Drift’s fingers began to tremble, unconsciously drifting towards his hips, reaching for a sword that he wasn’t currently carrying.  Fortunately, the mech didn’t seem to notice his slip up. “I suppose,” he lied. How had this taken such a terrible turn so quickly?  “But I’ve lived in Iacon for a while, and I’ve never seen anything like this happen before. Did something change?”

At first, the mech laughed, but his mirth was short-lived.  The glee in his optic morphed, to surprise, and then horror.  “Wait, you – you’re serious?”

“I don’t get out much,” Drift shrugged with a smile that he hoped was disarming. 

Even after the admission, the mech spent several long seconds ascertaining Drift’s honesty before finally making his reply.  “I mean, it happened only a week ago, so I guess it’s still fresh in everyone’s minds.”

“What is?”

And that was how Drift found himself in his neighbor’s undersized room, awkwardly stuffed onto a couch that was much too short for him, and sitting in front of a holocaster that spanned the entirety of the wall, watching with a sinking feeling in his tanks, as their newly-promoted Magnus addressed a crowd of reporters, soldiers, and nobles.

“My fellow Cybertronians,” he said, “today we mourn the twenty-seven Bots whose lives were taken far too early, and the countless others who were injured – Bots who left the house that morning expecting the best night of their lives, and instead were given misery and death.  We’ve spent so long living with the privileges of peace, that such senseless violence is completely foreign to us. We ask ourselves, ‘how could this have happened?’ ‘Who could be responsible for such a terrible thing?’

“The answer, of course, is the Decepticons.  We always took for granted the threat they posed to our peace and prosperity.  ‘Sure, they’re evil, but they’re all dying off, aren’t they?’ ‘Yeah, they killed a lot of people, but that was two million years ago.  Why should I care?’ Or even, ‘The Decepticons are all the way on the other side of the galaxy; no way they could even reach Cybertron.’  Even I am guilty of having believed such things in the past.

“But tonight, our complacency was punished.  Tonight, it was revealed that a beloved pop singer, Rosanna of Protihex, was a Decepticon sleeper agent under deep cover.  Disguised in an unthreatening Autobot shell, she snuck her way onto our planet, planted herself in the sparks of the people, and then, while we were vulnerable, she struck, destroying a packed stadium at a special concert for the Autobot military, and killing several of our finest mechs – soldiers, officers, medics, and recruits – in the process.  And I regret to inform you, she is not the only case of this we’ve seen over the years, though she is the most serious.

“The Decepticons are already among us.  They know how we look, what we like, how we act – they steal our faces, sneak into our homes, earn our trust, and then, when you’re looking the other way, they stab us in the back.  Well, I say, no more. I’m done with burying friends because they trusted the wrong person. From now on, it’s open season on Decepticons, and those with Decepticon ties!” To Drift’s horror, the proclamation was met with thunderous applause.

“So let’s show those monsters that we won’t be caught off-guard again!” Sentinel continued.  “We’re done with allowing ourselves to be tricked! If the Decepticons can look like anyone, then trust no one.  Stay alert. Be the optics and audials of the military. If you see anything suspicious, don’t hesitate to report it to the authorities.  Be the heroes I know you can be. With your help, we can prevent another tragedy of this nature from ever happening again. We can kick the Decepticons off of Cybertron once and for all.  ‘Til all are one!”

The image froze on a shot of Sentinel’s face, locked in a mask of manic glee, while the gathered crowd burst in a chorus of raucous applause.  Primus, no wonder his neighbor had been attacked. A speech like that was nothing more than an excuse to sew the seeds of paranoia and incite violence in the masses.  Drift thought he would be sick.

“That was ten days ago exactly,” the Hovercraft, who had introduced himself as Waterlog, explained.  “And don’t get me wrong. What happened at the Rosanna concert was terrible, and I mean – I’m a patriot.  I want the Decepticons outta here as much as anyone, but this?” He jerked a hand at Sentinel’s image. “This is just gonna end up with Autobots turning on each other – case in point.”  He sighed, slumping backwards.

“Anyway, apparently they’re coming out with these deep code scanners – the plan is to start by putting them at the entrances to common-use areas, and then spreading them farther and farther, until your base code is on display for the world to see.  Sure, it’ll flush out some Decepticons, but it’s kind of a creepy invasion of privacy if you ask me. Then again, I guess that’s the world we live in, huh?” He paused, giving Drift a worried stare, “Hey, you okay?”

Drift was not okay.  He wasn’t a Decepticon, hadn’t been for a long time now, and had even provided the Autobots with valuable intel that had aided in their victory over the Decepticons back during the war.  His new life, new frame, new everything had all been granted to him by the Autobot government. But they couldn’t change his spark. Physically, there was no difference between his situation, and the Decepticons who had been infiltrating Cybertron while wearing Autobot frames, and the population at large sure as the Pit wouldn’t care if he claimed to be reformed, provided they even believed him.

In essence, he was screwed.  But he couldn’t let this mech know that; he was a self-proclaimed patriot in his own right.  For all Drift knew, Waterlog, grateful or not, would turn Drift in were he to pick up even a whisper of his true nature.  “Yeah,” he lied, “I just – I can’t believe this is what we’ve come to.”

“These are some crazy times we live in,” Waterlog agreed.  “We’ll just have to be sure to watch each other’s backs.”

“Y-yeah.”  In one smooth motion, Drift rose to his feet, easily stepping over the back of the couch in his haste to get to the door.  “But anyway, I should be going. We’re coming up on the day cycle, and I’ve got a dojo to tend to. I’ll – uh – see you around.”  He gave an awkward wave, which Waterlog returned with an added head tilt and quirked optic ridge. 

“Yeah, see ya.  And thanks again.”

For once, Drift hadn’t been lying.  His duties at the dojo proved the perfect opportunity to escape.  He stopped back at his apartment just long enough to grab a few focusing crystals, but then it was straight off to his home away from home, sticking to the back roads, and checking his rearview mirror every other minute just in case.

_ Calm down, Drift.  No one is coming to get you.  You’ll be okay. _

He tried to clear his mind, to focus on the warm glow of the crystal that sat in his passenger seat, to push aside the fear of being dragged off to some prison for a crime he didn’t commit, thrown in with the very mechs he’d betrayed to be here.  But this wasn’t a nightmare – a flashback to events that had occurred two million years ago, horrors that were too far away to physical touch him ever again. This was a very real threat, a very real chance that he would lose the quiet life he’d carved out for himself, and all because of circumstances beyond his control.

He’d long ago thought to have proven himself to the Autobots; what more did he have to do?

What more  _ could _ he do?

_ What happens, happens.  There’s no changing that.  Just prepare yourself for the worst, plan around it.  You’ll be fine, Drift. You’ve survived worse. _

It wasn’t much consolation, but it was all he had at the moment.  He’d put a call in to Jazz (assuming that Jazz even remembered him), and hope that they could work something out.  In the meantime, all he could do was keep right on living his life as though nothing had changed. His only hope for survival was to not draw attention to himself, to keep on tending to the dojo, hitting the races, and locking himself away in his room.  The moment anyone caught him acting strange was the moment his life was over.  _ No pressure, Drift. _

He pulled in to the dojo, the only one there as always, transforming back to root mode, and heading straight for the cleaning supply cupboard.  By the time he’d finished polishing and waxing the floors, trimming back the crystal hedges, raking the sand garden, refilling the energon casques, rearranging the weapons cabinets, dusting the empty protoform racks, and setting up his classroom, his hands had at last stop trembling, and he could no longer hear the mad thrum of his spark in his audials.

He didn’t know when, or even if, another soul would show up today, but his duties were done; the dojo would keep on running as though Master Yoketron had never left, regardless of whether or not anybody else used it.  In the meantime, Drift would take the opportunity to keep his swordsmanship sharp. The skill was probably going to come in handy in the near future. He buried the fear and doubt beneath his katas and flourishes, and let his processor fade away.  He could worry about the future another time. For now, everything was normal. For now, he was fine. 

He had to be.


	2. A Prime in Recovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back planetside after recovering from cosmic rust, Rodimus finds himself in a world very different from the one he left behind.

There were no lights in Rodimus’s apartment.  Sure there were fixtures for lights, and they’d even once seen use, but these days, the young Prime couldn’t be bothered with their upkeep.  What was the point? Recently released from the hospital, and trailing at the tail end of his recovery, he was asleep more than not these days, and even when he did manage the energy to stay awake, he never did much more than lie on his bed and gaze sullenly at the ceiling.

At one point, Rodimus had led a charmed life.  He was handsome, and talented - a mech who had quickly worked his way from private, to minor, to Prime.  Who led off-world combat missions against the Decepticons, and who had been on the fast-track to becoming Magnus.  But that was before General Strika, before he’d lost half his squad, before he’d been taken as a prisoner of war and inflicted with cosmic rust.  After that the hits just kept right on coming. 

He was lucky to be alive, they’d said.  Lucky to be back home on Cybertron, safe and away from the frontlines.  But Rodimus didn’t feel very lucky. He felt guilty - guilty for living on, when so many others had not.

It was morning, but with the blinds pulled shut, he scarcely noticed.  What he did notice was the insistent ping in his audial; Red Alert was trying to contact him.  He didn’t answer. Red Alert was the only other mech to have survived that fateful mission. He had led her and the others onto that asteroid; he was the one responsible for everything that happened afterwards.  He couldn’t stand to face her, likely never could again.

The pinging ceased, save for one last pitiful beep that signaled she’d left a message.  Though he couldn’t bare speaking with her, the least he could do was listen to what she’d had to say.

_ “Rodimus . . .” _ she trailed off, already struggling to find the words to say.  “ _ Hey, I know things have been . . . difficult lately, but I just wanted to say that I’m glad you made it home safely.  Cosmic Rust has a very . . . dismal survival rate, but for you the worst is past. Still, since I know you won’t read those documents the doctors gave you, I’m just going to give you some pointers to help you in your recovery . . .” _

It wasn’t that Rodimus didn’t want to listen - he respected Red Alert, and after having spent so long out of commission, the last thing he wanted to do was exacerbate the situation.  But the instructions about how to best facilitate his recovery, by nature, reminded him that he’d been ill in the first place, which likewise brought him back to the moment on that meteor - the one where he’d been inflicted with the disease, the one where he’d lost so many of his friends.

He let her words wash over him in a dull haze, and instead tried to focus on his surroundings.  The blinds were shut tight, blocking out the only light source the room had to boast of. His first task then, was flicking the switch to bring them up, bathing the room in the soft yellow of dawn.  From there, he folded away his bed, he poured his morning cube of energon from his storage cupboard, he even took to gazing at the pictures on the walls - a mistake as it turned out. Most were harmless shots - him at his Right of Primacy Ceremony.  Artful photos of lilleth birds, his favorite celebrity racer, posed with some motivational caption beneath him. But then, he’d come across the picture of his graduating class at the academy, and he had broken down, lubricant trailing from his optics, and engine stuttering.  There were so many faces captured here, innocent and smiling, unaware of the gruesome fates that awaited them down the line: Brawn, Dust-Up, Tidal Wave, Pyro, Blurr . . .

_ He’s not dead!  He’s just missing; there’s still a chance they’ll find him! _

Try as he might, Rodimus couldn’t believe the words.  Blurr, his best friend for vorns, had been a particularly hard case to bear.  A member of both the Elite Guard and Autobot Intelligence, Blurr had been particularly close to his own commanding officer, Longarm Prime, the same Longarm Prime who had been revealed as a Decepticon spy only two lunar cycles ago.  There was no way that monster would have let an agent as competent and dangerous as Blurr live, if given the chance.

_ “. . . and please, don’t overexert yourself,” _ Red Alert’s voice insisted, words finally managing to convey meaning once again.  “ _ Your spark went through a lot these past few lunar cycles - a sufficient enough shock could be enough to trigger a relapse.  Stay safe, Rodimus. For my sake.” _

_ Stay safe _ .  He wondered if that was a command he could ever truly follow.  Not that it mattered much at the moment. Ever since he’d returned to Cybertron, HQ had been handling him with kid gloves.  He couldn’t do anything or go anywhere without approval, and with his body in such a weakened state, the requests that actually received approval were few and far between.  He needed to receive a mission soon, or he would go mad.

Speaking of . . .

His comm gave another ping.  His initial thought was Red Alert again - perhaps she’d missed something important in that previous message; Primus knew Rodimus had.  But it was not Red Alert. The frequency, rather, was that of Sentinel Prime -  _ no _ \- it was Sentinel Magnus now.  He was never going to get used to that one.

Unlike Red Alert, he had no aversion to taking the call; with any luck, the Magnus would give him an excuse to get outside. 

“Rodimus here.”

_ “Rodimus, good to see you back up and about,” _ said the Magnus, with a sort of boredom present in his voice that implied a complete lack of sincerity.  As touching as that was not, Rodimus still thought it best to play along.

“It is good to be back, sir.”

_ “Red Alert says that you’re not back on active duty yet, is that right?” _

Ouch.  Only seconds into the conversation, and Red Alert was already back on his mind.  Was there no escaping the trauma of that day? “Ah, not yet sir.”

There was an irritated silence on the other end, and perhaps an angry sigh as well.  Rodimus would have hoped that becoming Magnus had taught Sentinel some restraint, but apparently it was too much to hope for.  

_ “Well, perhaps I can squeeze a little favor out of you anyway?  Nothing big - you won’t even have to leave Iacon.” _

Rodimus frowned.  On the one hand, he was pretty sure that Red Alert would not approve of such a thing, but on the other, he really did need to get out of the house, and the orders of the Magnus always superceded those of anyone else.  “That sounds doable, sir.”

_ “Good, then report to my office by the thirteenth cycle.  I wanna do this face-to-face. You can’t trust that the comm lines are secure.” _

“Yes sir.  Of course, sir.  I’ll head out right away.”

_ “Good.  Sentinel out.” _

~~~

It had been a long time since Rodimus had been out on the streets of Iacon - oh, how the world had changed in such a short time.  Everywhere he turned, there were posters hanging from the walls - propaganda, reminding Autobots to be vigilant, to trust no one, and to keep the authorities informed of all suspicious activity.  Rodimus hated it. This level of paranoia was bound to hurt all sorts of innocent Bots; vigilante justice was not what this world needed right now. And what was the point of defeating the Decepticons at all if the Autobots were left in such a miserable state afterwards?  Wasn’t this the kind of life that their enemies lived - the kind of life they were fighting against?

With the city in such a state, it didn’t take before Rodimus’s fears were realized.  Three blocks from his house, he was pulled from his gloomy thoughts by the sounds of a commotion.  Well-honed instincts took over, and despite Red Alert’s warnings, he found himself jumping into battle mode.  He rounded the street corner, bow in hand, ready to fight the entire Decepticon army if need be.

What he found was not the Decepticon army.  There was Brainstorm, a member of the experimental Project Aerialbot, clutching a yellow briefcase to his chest as four more Autobots, all young Speedsters of about Rodimus’s size, surrounded him, throwing out insults and accusations.

“What’s in the briefcase, Con?  Selling government secrets to your buddies?”

“N-no!  Of course not,” Brainstorm squawked.  “And it’s none of your business. I’m just trying to get to work; leave me alone.”

“Please, an Autobot with a flying alt mode?  You think anyone’s gonna buy that?”

“I signed up for Project Aerialbot!  It’s common knowledge: the government is reformatting volunteers into flying alt modes to put us on more equal footing with the Decepticons.  Just because I have wings, doesn’t mean I’m a Con!”

“Yeah, sure,” another of the thugs snorted.  “It just means you’re pumped full of Con coding.  I’m sure that’s had no effect on how you -”

“What’s going on here?” Rodimus barked out, no longer content to wait.  With all the authority he could muster, he marched into the middle of the group, placing himself between the thugs and Brainstorm.  

At first, his arrival was met with nonchalance, but it seemed that at least one of these brats had enough sense to recognize him.  “Wait, isn’t that Rodimus Prime?”

The other three paused in their advance, looking between themselves.  “What, a Prime, really?”

“No, yeah!  That was the one what got struck down in the line of duty.  I thought he was dead?”

“No you idiot.  He got real sick so they brought him back to Cybertron.”  And that was enough of that. Rodimus did not want to venture down that road any farther.

“I was infected with Cosmic Rust, if you must know,” he snapped, causing all four mechs to shudder in fear.  Even civilians had heard tell of the horrors of cosmic rust. “And now that I’ve made a full recovery, I am back here to help keep the peace, which I see that you four have interrupted.”

“But sir,” the first began, hanging his head, “he’s a Con - look at ‘im, he’s got wings and everything.  It’s our - uh - our civic duty to kill all Cons. The Magnus said so.”

Primus, what had happened to this place since Sentinel took over?  “Surely even you have heard of Project Aerialbot?”

“Y-yes sir,” the bot admitted.

“Then I can promise you that he is not a Con.  This mech is a patriot - anyone willing to give up their original alt mode for the sake of Cybertron is a damned hero.  You should show him some respect!” It seemed that, despite his recent brush with death, Rodimus at least still had the ability to work a crowd.  The four mechs all jumped to attention, trying too little too late to present themselves as the model citizens they wanted to be, rather than the terrified thugs they were.

“Y-yes sir!  Sorry sir!” said one.

“Now get out of here.”

He didn’t need to ask twice.  All four mechs scurried away like terrified newsparks, and Rodimus couldn’t escape a twinge of pride in his own abilities.  He’d missed being respected in his own right; for too long, he’d felt like a useless lump of scrap metal, incapable of protecting anyone at all . . . 

“Rodimus Prime?” Brainstorm’s chirpy voice pulled him back to the moment, before the stirred up memories of his last battle could fully catch up to him.  Thankfully.

“Brainstorm, right?  Are you okay?”

“Y-yes sir!” Brainstorm said, allowing his shivering frame to relax.  “Thank you for the assistance. I was nearly afraid for a moment there,” he laughed, though even Rodimus could tell that the bravado was forced.  “I was on my way to the Metroplex to drop off some . . .” he trailed off, his eyes growing wide with alarm. “Well, anyway, thank you! Who knows what would have happened if those kids had gotten their way?”

“Don’t mention it,” Rodimus replied, frowning.  A mech, accosted on his way to work? It was a travesty, and one that would likely repeat itself; there was a whole lot of city between their current location and the Metroplex.  “Hey, look,” he said, forcing a smile. “I’m on my way to the Metroplex myself. I can come with you, if you want. Folks should think twice about attacking if you have a Prime with you.”  Their alt modes weren’t exactly compatible for travelling together, were Brainstorm permitted to fly in the city in the first place; they’d have to walk, which would be slower going, but he still had plenty of time until his meeting with Sentinel, and like the Pit was he about to leave an innocent mech to get attacked again.

Brainstorm’s eerie yellow optics lit up, and his wings gave a slight flicker of glee.  “You’d do that, sir? Oh thank you! You really are too kind!”

And that was how Rodimus ended up escorting a near stranger through downtown Iacon.  Brainstorm was pleasant company - he was chatty and cheery, if not a little lacking in boundaries, but a sunny disposition was just what Rodimus needed right now.  The dose of brightness provided by his travelling companion was even enough to blind him to the numerous glares of the passersby on the way. 

Soon enough, the pair was arriving at the front steps of Fortress Maximus, the center of Cybertron’s military command.  With another heartfelt ‘Thank you,’ Brainstorm scurried off to do whatever it was he was supposed to be doing, and Rodimus did the same, with Sentinel’s office as his destination.

“You’re late,” said Sentinel Prime, his back to the door, as Rodimus finally entered.

“Sorry, sir.  There was a crisis I had to deal with.”

“Oh?”  When Sentinel whirled around to face Rodimus, there was a very real fear in his eyes, but it died upon seeing Rodimus’s own unharmed state.  The Magnus stood up straighter, clearing his throat, as though trying to appear as though he hadn’t been in a state of panic half a second prior.  “Of what nature?”

Rodimus decided it was in his best interest to ignore Sentinel’s flustered state, and report as directed.  “A handful of civilians had picked a fight with a member of Project Aerialbot.

Sentinel frowned.  “Are you sure it wasn’t the other way around?  I understand increased aggression is a side effect of Decepticon coding.”

What in the world was he on about?  The way Sentinel spoke - it was as though he didn’t trust his own men - let alone his own projects.  Rodimus didn’t like that one bit, but again, saw no reason to draw attention to it. Sentinel was a notoriously stubborn mech - calling out his shortcomings was bound to end poorly for Rodimus, war hero or no.  “It was the civilians; I saw enough to know.”

Strangely, Sentinel relaxed at the news, letting his shoulders fall slack, before remembering the formality of the occasion and puffing out his chest once more.  “I see. Well, it is good that the common folk are taking this matter seriously.”

Again, it was not the reaction Rodimus would have expected from the leader of all Autobots.  “Vigilance is important, I agree,” he said, carefully, “but I am a little worried about some of the results.  If one innocent mech has been attacked by over-zealous citizens, then you can be sure that there are more - mechs for whom I couldn’t be there to protect.”

“Noted,” Sentinel said, though his tone was infuriatingly indifferent.  “Still, the Aerialbots knew the risks when they agreed to take on the Decepticon coding, and I would rather the citizens be overly-enthusiastic in their vigilance than fall for another Rosanna, or worse, Longarm.”

Rodimus froze at the mention of the name, his mind thrown into yet another jumbled haze of memories and speculation.  Longarm, no,  _ Shockwave _ , Blurr’s commanding officer, the mech he cared for more than any other, and the mech behind his disappearance.  What it must have been like, to be betrayed by someone so close? Had Blurr been scared? Shockwave was so much bigger than Blurr, so much older and stronger - Rodimus would have been terrified to find himself at that creature’s mercy.  He shook his head; there were more pertinent issues to focus on at the moment. 

“Of course sir,” Rodimus replied, slowly.  As much as he disagreed, as much as he thought that Sentinel’s paranoia campaign was actively hurting Cybertron, Rodimus had no hopes of convincing Sentinel to dial back the propaganda.  For the moment, all he really could do was change the subject. “But you wanted to see me about something?”

“Ah yes,” said Sentinel, likewise eager to ditch the previous topic, it seemed.  He smiled, and slid into his desk chair, pulling out a tablet from one of the drawers.  “So it seems that Red Alert has just cleared you for light work. Ordinarily, I would want to give a war hero like yourself all the time in the world to recuperate, but well - we’re living in dangerous times, and we’re a bit understaffed, especially planetside.”  He gave a hearty laugh, though Rodimus didn’t know what exactly, was supposed to be funny about the situation.

“I am eager to get back to work,” he said, figuring honesty was his best approach.  “I’ve been going a little stir crazy - cooped up in my apartment. Anything you have for me, I am more than willing to do it.”

There was something sinister about the look that passed Sentinel’s face, but it was gone before Rodimus had time to truly make sense of it.  Perhaps he was just seeing things.

“That’s the spirit, Rodimus Prime.”  The pointed way he said the name was cringeworthy; it seemed there was some sort of grudge there, a grudge which Rodimus knew nothing about.  What did the Magnus have to be angry about? Rodimus wasn’t stupid enough to point it out here and now, and thankfully, Sentinel didn’t linger in his distaste.  He returned to flipping through the file.

“Anyway, we need someone to keep track of our scanners.”

“Scanners?  That’s for that new deep code scanning program, right?”  Another example of Sentinel overstretching his power as Magnus, in Rodimus’s eyes.  Not only were the devices expensive, causing funds to be diverted from other crucial programs for their implementation, but there was something unsettling about putting a bot’s deepest coding on display for anyone to read.  Finding Decepticons in disguise was one thing, but the further possible uses for such hardware were more than a little unnerving.

“That’s the one,” Sentinel laughed.  “Glad to know you’re paying attention, even in your downtime.  We could use more guys with your work ethic.”

“Always happy to serve,” Rodimus laughed back, finally resorting to cheery dishonesty to get by.  This entire situation made his plating crawl, and he feared it would start to show on his face, if he didn’t actively combat his real feelings.

“Good, good,” said Sentinel.  “I’ve got a squad already dedicated to the task, of course, but we’ve recently expanded to include scanners at three District Two banks, the District Five shopping center, and the District Six race tracks.  I was thinking you’d be a good choice to fill in, until we can find someone proper for the position. We can stick you at the tracks - a hot shot hero like you deserves to spend your day surrounded by pretty racers, don’t you think?  Should be enough to keep you busy at least, while you recover.”

It was a little insulting, even ignoring the ever-grating alt mode objectification - he was a Speedster too, after all, but here he was: a frontline fighter, on the fast track to becoming Magnus in his own right, now being tasked to monitor civilian populations in a morally-repugnant manner.  There was so much that still needed to be done - Generals Strika and Straxus were still out there somewhere, Agent Blurr was missing (and Shockwave wasn’t talking), there was some sort of crisis building up on Earth, and that was to say nothing of the growing tensions amongst Cybertron’s civilian populations.  But orders were orders, and anything was better than sitting at home in the dark. Besides, with a rational authority figure like himself in charge, maybe he could save some innocent mechs from an unjust fate.

“Of course, sir.  Sounds good to me.”

“Perfect.  I’ll have Cliffjumper send over your paperwork right away to get this all official.  In the meantime, just know that even though you’re here for the public’s safety, I don’t want you to overtax yourself - you are still recovering, after all.  You’ll be allotted a few grunts in case things get rough out there, but I can’t imagine you’ll need to use them too often. All you gotta worry your pretty little head about is issuing and stamping arrest warrants for any mechs with Decepticon relations, and your guys will take care of the rest.  We golden, Rodimus?”

“Understood, sir.”

Rodimus didn’t like any of this, and the discomfort followed him from Sentinel’s office all the way back home, where he couldn’t help but notice that the people on the street were still withdrawn, eyeing their fellow passersby with suspicion and mistrust.  What kind of world had Cybertron become in his absence? He knew better than most just what the Decepticons were capable of, and yet, it was hard to justify transforming Cybertron into a den of paranoia and vigilante justice to prevent it. Surely there couldn’t be that many Decepticons in hiding on their Homeworld - not enough to justify such extreme measures.

Still, there was nothing he could do about it; he was just one mech, Prime or no, facing the world.  And so, he’d do his sworn duty, and show up to the race tracks on Duosol at the sixth cycle sharp, ready to scan the sparks of all in attendance, in the off chance that Sentinel’s fears were founded.  

What were the odds of anything happening?

 


	3. A Day at the Racetrack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In an effort to make a little money, Drift decides to participate in the popular Iacon races. Now he's in the public eye, for better or worse.

Life on Cybertron continued to be a waking nightmare, but for Drift, it was a nightmare he could manage.  Jazz had not yet gotten back to him, but Jazz was a busy mech; Drift could wait for him a little longer. In the meantime, Drift was getting by - keeping to himself as he always did, managing the dojo, training his frame to peak condition.  But there was only so long he could keep to himself for - so long he could go, sticking only to the back streets, not talking to another soul.

The end of that lifestyle came faster than he would have hoped.  The fuel reserves he kept in his cupboards were running low; he’d have to go buy some.  That in itself wasn’t unusual. Restocking his supplies at the corner shop was one of the few things that could draw Drift out of his isolated existence, but in the current political atmosphere, the idea of facing strangers instilled within him a deep sense of anxiety - not unfounded, as it turned out.

“What do you mean it’s declined?” he asked, trying his hardest to maintain a calm demeanor, even as panic threatened to swallow him whole.

The shopkeeper shrugged, disinterested.  “That’s just what the machine says. Apparently there ain’t enough credits in your account.  Don’t suppose you got another card?”

Drift didn’t.

He left the shop that day empty-handed and more upset than ever.  Somehow, in the months he’d spent doing absolutely nothing with his time, he’d missed the fact that his last supply run had left him low on funds - that or he’d noticed, and had foolishly allowed it to slip his mind.  Either way, he was in a jam. He needed fuel to live, and was flat broke, the only asset to his name being Master Yoketron’s dojo.

Like he was going to sell that!

He’d been making his money at the races for decades now; all he had to do was sign up for the volunteer league, work his way up to the top, collect his winnings, and sit on them for a few decades more.  The possibility of losing didn’t cross his mind; it never did, because he’d never lost. Velocitronian frames were straight up the fastest land-based frametype, and were rare on Cybertron proper to boot.  Lucky for him, that was just the frame they’d fit him with - the only thing with enough power to maintain a flier’s spark, if only just. Drift always came in, won, and then disappeared again before he had a chance to become a big name.  An ex-Decepticon in the spotlight was just asking for trouble, even in Ultra Magnus’s reign. Rosanna had proven that.

Now, it was going to be a whole lot worse.  He didn’t know how wide-spread Sentinel Magnus’s deep code scanners had become, but there was a very real possibility that they would be a problem for him.  Still, what choice did he have?

~~~

“Racers I-15 to I-25, please take your positions.”

Drift faithfully scurried to his corral, a mobile, single-bot enclosure, which would lift him up to the racetrack when the time came.  Usually, this was a moment for his spark to flare in anticipation, as he got in his last-minute stretching, preemptively activated his cooling fans, and prepared himself for the tribulation ahead, but today, his spark just wasn’t in it. 

He’d been allowed to register without a hitch, and no one had stopped him from entering the stadium itself either.  For all intents and purposes, he was good to go, set to keep living the easy life that had sustained him for so very long.  And yet, he couldn’t help but notice the visibly small number of mechs who had occupied the green room before, the lack of names on the sign-up sheet.  Was it coincidence? Perhaps mechs had better things to do these days than race, or maybe Sentinel had boosted the economy and most mechs didn’t need the extra income.  Maybe racing had lost its glamour, and some new sport had come in to usurp its positions as ‘Cybertron’s favorite pastime.’ Surely there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for the lack of racers that had nothing to do with increased aggression towards dissenters.

The corrals were raised to the racetrack, and for a moment, Drift was basking in the praise of a cheering crowd.  For the first time in weeks, he didn’t have to worry about Sentinel, or being found out as a Decepticon. Right now, it was just him, and the road ahead of him.  Nothing else mattered.

~~~

Drift won that first race with ease, and the second and third after it.  He was breezing his way through the preliminaries as he always did, and enjoying the way the number in his bank account grew higher and higher.  Each win raised his worth a little more - five hundred shanix after the first raise, one thousand after the second, then ten thousand. One more race would have him set for the next few stellar cycles.  One more race, and he could go back to living that easy, isolated existence.

It was just his luck, that one more race was one race too many.

He was in the green room again, waiting to be called into position for the next race, when the door slammed open and three Autotroopers marched in, one holding some sort of scanner in his hand.  The fuel turned to ice in Drift’s lines at the sight. This was his every fear coming true - the Autobots had come to cast him out, and there was nowhere for him to run, nowhere for him to hide. Unconsciously, he hunched in on himself, willing the sofa he sat upon to open up and devour him whole, to save him from the cold hand of fate.

“Racers,” said one of the Autotroopers, the one at the front of the pack, “under the orders of Sentinel Magnus, all public figures must submit to a deep code scanning, to ensure that no desirables find themselves in the position of role model to the masses.  You understand, of course.”

Drift’s only consolation was that he didn’t seem to be the only bot upset at the prospect.  Quickwit had his back pressed into the corner, forcefully enough that his spoiler had scratched the wall.  Swiftwind may not have been trying to hide, but there was a shell-shocked expression on his face and a tremble in his left leg that belied his fear.  Ziptrip’s optics were darting to and fro, as though seeking a way out, and Starslammer was shaking her head, as though unable to believe what she was seeing.  

Drift wished that he had access to the comms of the other racers.  They had a slight advantage of numbers against the Autotroopers. If he could coordinate a resistance with his peers, then there was a small chance that at least some of them could escape, but it was foolish to fantasize.  These were civilians - pampered small-time celebrities. They never would have gone for it, even if he’d had the chance to work something out, and due to the no weapons policy of the racetrack, Drift’s swords were back at his apartment; he wouldn’t have been able to fight against the armed Autotroopers; none of them would have.  The only option was to boldly accept their shared fate.

“Ah yeah, that’s the typical reaction,” the Autotrooper sighed, with a jarring amount of levity for the grave situation.  “But hey, I promise, as long as you ain’t done nothing wrong, you’re good to go. Let’s start with you, right here,” he gestured to Quickwit, who tried squirming further back into the wall - a futile gesture, “and work our way around the room.  O-Two? If you’d do the honors?”

The bot with the scanner stepped forward, towards the terrified bot in the corner, the silly, oblong device held in his hands brandished like a weapon.  For a moment, it emitted a soft light, casting a purple sheen over Quickwit, then there was a beep, and it was over.

“There,” said the first Autotrooper.  “That wasn’t so bad, was it? Now, on to you.”  

The Autotroopers moved on, first to Swiftwind and then Ziptrip, who both received a single  _ beep _ , as Quickwit had before them.  When it came time for Starslammer, however, it instead let out two  _ beeps _ in quick succession.  The Autotrooper holding the scanner shook his head, and exchanged glances with the presumed leader of the three.

“Uh-oh,” he said, again, far too lightly for the situation at hand.

“W-what does that mean?  What’s wrong? I’m not a Decepticon!” Starslammer stammered, slowly backing away.  Her retreat didn’t do her much good. The first Autotrooper raised a hand, and the third stepped forward, grabbing Starslammer by her skinny arm, and dragging her towards the door as she struggled against him.

“Oh no, no you’re not a Decepticon.  That is true,” the first Autotrooper said.  “But you do have quite the record. Three counts of Syk possession?  Four counts drunk and disorderly. Sixteen counts of reckless driving.  Oh, and it looks like two arrests.”

“That was vorns ago!” Starslammer protested, but her cries fell on deaf audials.  While the third Autotrooper restrained her, the first pulled out a pair of stasis cuffs and slapped them across her wrists; she stopped struggling.

“We’ll let the court of law determine whether or not you should be racing.  Now, as for the last one.”

Drift was on his feet well before the second Autotrooper reached him.  With three of them standing between him and the door, he had little hope of escaping, but being on his feet gave him some small piece of mind.  It was easier to fight this way, should he need to. 

Likely, the only fighting he’d be doing would be with words.

The Autotrooper raised the scanner, and Drift prepared for the worst.

It wasn’t a beep that the machine emitted, or even two.  Instead, the purple light that bathed him turned an angry red, and the tiny scanner let loose a deep, persistent buzz.  All at once, the atmosphere of the room changed. No longer was Drift one of many Autobot racers, united in their fear of unjust persecution.  There was judgment in the eyes of his former companions, fear. The accusing buzz of the scanner was understood by every bot in the room, Autotrooper and racer alike.  Drift was not one of them.

“Well, well,” the first Autotrooper sneered, grabbing Drift’s arm as his companion had done to Starslammer earlier, though he was far more rough, as he dragged Drift in close.  “Look at what we have here.”

“What’s wrong, what does it mean?” asked Ziptrip, already knowing the answer, judging by the hatred in her optics.

“It means,” said the Autotrooper, leaning in close, as if to scrutinize every detail of Drift’s face, “we’ve got ourselves a Decepticon.”

Drift’s frame was shaking hard in the grasp of the horrific, ghostly hand of the Autotrooper, but somehow, he managed to shake his head back and forth.  “N-no, you’re wrong,” he choked, his voice a broken whisper.

“The machine doesn’t lie,” the Autotrooper laughed.  From the corner of his eye, Drift could see the third Autotrooper pull a pair of stasis cuffs from his subspace, his previous captive already lying helpless on the floor.  Despite her prone position, Starslammer was glaring at him with pure loathing in her eyes. This was a desperate situation; if he didn’t do something soon, he would be dragged off to Trypitcon, thrown in with the very mechs he’d betrayed all those years ago.  He’d sacrificed so much to find freedom, tranquility, peace of mind - he couldn’t give up so easily.

With that in mind, he forced his frame to stop shaking, forced the fear from his eyes, and the weakness from his voice.  “It doesn’t tell the whole truth though, does it? Otherwise you’d know that I defected two million years ago. That I fought for the Autobots at the end of the Great War, which is more than I can say for any of your lot.  My status is well-documented in the halls of Fortress Maximus. You’re arresting the wrong guy!”

The brilliant blue optics of the Autotrooper narrowed, though whether in surprise or anger, Drift couldn’t say.  “Do you think I’m stupid,  _ Deadlock? _ ”

Drift winced, despite himself.  The machine knew his old name, a name he hadn’t heard in millennia.  Visions of twisted, monstrous faces filled his head - the empty eye-sockets of his old crew, energon streaming down their face plates, jaws dropped from their hinges, as they tore into one another, as they tried to do the same to Drift.  He hadn’t been Deadlock since that day; he wasn’t Deadlock now. This guard had no business calling him such a foul thing!

Drift didn’t regret kicking the guard; his long leg managed to make contact with the Autotrooper’s neck with enough force that he relinquished his hold.  He didn’t regret making a break for it; his only shot at freedom lied on the other side of the remaining two Autotroopers. What he did regret was his decision to try bolting right through the pair.  He managed to slip through the grasping hands of the second guard, and even made it through the door. That was, of course, when the third guard body slammed him, pinning him against the wall right outside, hard enough that his chest plate caved in, pressing uncomfortably against his spark chamber.  Despite the sudden pain, Drift did not cry out.

“Well well, he’s a Con after all,” the first Autotrooper sneered, rubbing his mouthplate.

“We bringin’ ‘im in, boss?” asked the second, as he shoved the scanner back into his subspace.

“I don’t see the need for that.  We know he’s a Con, and the prison’s already so full.  May as well rid the world of one monster, don’t you think?  Sentinel would approve.”

Execution.  They were going to murder him in cold blood, without so much as a chance to defend himself.  This was wrong!

“You don’t understand!” Drift hissed, squirming against his captor.  

“We understand plenty,” the third shot back, pushing further at Drift’s dented chestplate.  It hurt, but the pain paled in comparison with his processor’s need to find a fast solution.  Fortunately for Drift, he was a fast bot.

His captor had to pull back if he wanted to do anything other than keep pushing Drift into the wall, and it seemed he very much did.  His stubby fingers wrapped themselves around Drift’s arms as he pulled away, but it didn’t matter. A kick had served him well the first time, and it didn’t fail him here either.  The Autotrooper stumbled backwards with a yowl of pain and surprise, and Drift bolted, this time with no one standing between him and escape.

“Stop him!”

Drift didn’t turn around, and he didn’t slow down.  There was nothing left for him now, save to navigate this racetrack and get back out on the street.  He didn’t know where he’d go after that, couldn’t even spare a thought for it. Right now, he was living in the moment.

Shots rang out, scorching the surrounding walls as they made contact.  However, although Drift was a small, squirrely target, there was only so long he could dodge a team of trained marksmen.  The blast hit him square in the back of his thigh, and he went stumbling forward. The force of his momentum was powerful; he was helpless to maintain his footing, barely managing to turn the corner before falling to the ground, and skidding painfully into a wall.  Unfortunately for Drift, the wall proved to be the sturdier of the two.

“N-no,” he whimpered, hurt, afraid, defeated.  There was nowhere left to run to, and nowhere to hide.  The Autotroopers were still a ways back, but they were getting closer every second, and Drift had been rendered helpless.  It was over.

“Hello?”

Drift jerked upright, desperately seeking his last potential source of salvation.  It came in the form of another Speedster, young and attractive, with a flashy red paintjob and flames painted onto his chestplate.  His face vaguely struck Drift’s memory files as that of a Prime, though the bot’s name and reputation escaped him for the moment. Should this be a Sentinel sympathizer, Drift’s life would be over.

The look on the Prime’s face, however, filled Drift with the confidence he needed.  No tyrant could look so absolutely devastated at the sight of a bot in pain. Those were gentle eyes, eyes that had seen suffering and fought to end it, the eyes of a hero.  

“Help me!” Drift begged, crawling along the floor to stop at the Prime’s feet.  “Please, don’t let them kill me!”

Primus was on his side today.  Drift’s words stirred the Prime to action.  He didn’t bother looking towards the sounds of pursuit that echoed from down the hall.  The Autotroopers would catch up soon, and if Drift was still here when they arrived, there was little hope for him, and both Drift and the Prime seemed to realize that.  Instead the Prime grabbed Drift by the arm, and none-too-gently shoved him into the room he’d so recently emerged from, slamming the door shut behind him without a word. 

The room was a simple office - a desk sat at the center, a shelf of data tablets covered one wall, but there were no personal effects to give it any life.  Either the Prime was not a sentimental mech, or he didn’t regularly spend time in this place. And here was Drift, collapsed on the floor just inside the door, hurting and disoriented and scared out of his wits.  He didn’t want to look at this sterile office. He wanted to be back at the dojo, back with the familiar, a million miles away from the nightmare that was waiting just outside that door.

“Where did the Speedster go?”  The muffled sound of one of the Autotroopers reached his audials, though Drift couldn’t guess which it was.  They all sounded the same to him.

“The zippy white one?” the Prime asked, his voice indifferent.  “You don’t have to worry about him. I’ve taken care of the matter.”

_ Thank Primus! _

The Autotrooper, however, seemed unconvinced.  “Sir, that mech is a dangerous Decepticon. He must be executed!  It’s the only way -”

“Autotrooper Zeta Ten Zero One, what did I just say?”

“That you’ve taken care of the matter,” the Autotrooper said sheepishly.  “But -”

“Am I, or am I not your Prime?” the Prime interrupted once more, his presence commanding, even through the door.  Drift could see why he was in charge.

“You are sir,” the Autotrooper stammered.

“And do you think me a fool?  Do you think that I did not receive the alert that you discovered a Decepticon on your rounds today?”  Drift’s spark stopped. The Prime knew what he was. Why had he helped him?

“N-no sir!  Of course not!”

“Then when I say that I’ve taken care of the matter, what is your response?”

“I - y-yes sir.  Understood sir.”

“Now, why don’t you go attend to that other mech you arrested, and get out of my sight?”

“Yes sir!” all three Autotroopers barked in unison.  Their affirmation was followed by a shuffling of feet as the three mechs who had so terrorized Drift these past minutes retreated back to the green room.  They were gone - the threat they posed, neutralized. For now, at least. Still, there was the issue of the Prime, who now held Drift’s life, and secret, in his hands.  Drift wasn’t out of the scrapheap just yet.

The door slid open, and the Prime stepped in, careful to maintain his strict, regal presence until the moment it closed behind him.  It was then, however, that a funny thing happened. The Prime got down on his knees, lowering himself to Drift’s level, and slowly extended a hand, letting it rest on Drift’s shoulder, as a gesture of comfort.  His eyes, too, which had been so stern when he entered the room, had softened, leaving him with a look of genuine concern.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice quiet, but authoritative, nonetheless, like a steady beacon in the night.  

“I - I don’t,” Drift stuttered, trying to come up with something to say.  So much had changed in such a short time, and he still didn’t know whether or not he could trust this Prime not to finish what his Autotroopers had started.  “Who are you?” It wasn’t the most important question he could have asked, but he was hardly in a state to prioritize. He was two million years removed from active combat; fighting for his life had long since transformed from reality to a distant nightmare.  The sudden regression was far too much to manage right now.

“I’m Rodimus Prime,” he said with a smile.  “And you’re Deadlock, right? I saw your info flash up when they scanned your deep code.”

“Drift!” Drift hissed back, unwilling to let anyone else call him by his old name.  It was perhaps to his benefit that the Prime was sympathetic.

“Drift, got it.” 

The Prime’s acquiescence didn’t make any sense.  He knew Drift was a Decepticon, and yet he was smiling.  Why was he smiling? He had no reason to show Drift any kindness - quite the opposite, and yet here they were, with Drift injured, crumpled on the floor, and the Prime talking to him like a real person.

“Then you know what I am,” Drift said after a moment, forcing himself to calm down.   _ The primary threat has passed.  This mech could have killed you before, but you’re still alive.  You’re not in danger. _

“A Decepticon, yeah,” Rodimus admitted.  “But a Decepticon wearing  _ that _ frame on Cybertron?”  He gestured vaguely at Drift.  “Clearly you’re not here to hide.  Besides, Decepticon or not, everyone deserves the right to a fair trial.”

“Oh.”  Drift didn’t want a trial.  He just wanted to go back to his life - to living on the outskirts of society - to tending the dojo and getting by.  A trial was still better than death, he supposed.

“How’s your leg?”

“What?”

“Your leg,” Rodimus repeated, pointing at the still-leaking gash in Drift’s leg.  It hurt, but he’d had worse. So long as he had something else to focus on, the pain wasn’t so bad.

“I mean, I got shot, so not great, I’d say.  Probably won’t be winning any races any time soon.”  To his surprise, Rodimus laughed at the morbid joke. 

“Yeah, I guess not.”  He rose to his feet, and began rifling in his subspace, before pulling out a role of foil-tape.  “Here,” he said, placing it in Drift’s hands. “This is obviously no substitute for actual medical treatment, but it should at least keep you from bleeding while we move you somewhere safer.”

“What, where -  _ we _ ?”  There were far many questions springing to Drift’s mind - none could quite make it out as a complete sentence.

Rodimus was smiling again.  Drift didn’t understand it. There was no reason a Prime should be smiling at a Decepticon, proven guilty or otherwise, and yet here they were.  He wondered if there was more to this interaction that he was missing, but he was too ignorant of this Rodimus to begin to imagine what that might be.

“With the regime of Sentinel Magnus being what it is, I don’t think it would be a great idea to leave you in jail.  You said Jazz could vouch for you?”

“You heard that?”  That did explain things a little.  Drift still didn’t believe that this Prime was genuinely this trusting, but at least he could chalk it up to faith in Jazz.

“My job is to monitor that lot,” he jerked his head towards the door, and the trio of Autotroopers who had long since gone.  “So yeah, I saw what happened, and heard. It’s wrong, what they did to you, but that’s the way the world is these days.”

Drift thought back to his neighbor, a deep-coded Autobot who had been attacked outside his home simply for holding dissenting views.  And now there was this. The world truly had turned into a mess, and Drift had sat by and watched it build over the years, without doing a thing to stop it.  Not that he could have.

“I think,” Rodimus continued, “that it would be best if we find somewhere else to keep you while we sort this all out, somewhere nice and out of the way, where they aren’t gonna think to come looking for you.  Y’know, just ‘til I can talk with Jazz. Is that okay with you?”

It wasn’t really, but it was the best he could hope for in his current situation.  His home would no doubt be ransacked, and the dojo would be a risky choice as well.  Outside of those two haunts, he simply didn’t have anywhere left to hide. All he could do was put his life in Rodimus’s hands, and hope for the best.

“What choice do I have?”


	4. A Houseguest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drift needs somewhere to stay until Jazz is able to vouch for him. Rodimus's house is the safest bet.

Everything was going to be fine.  So long as he kept repeating it, he knew it would be so.  Red Alert would arrive at the utility entrance of the racetrack, fix the worst of Drift’s injuries, and help carry him to safety.  Rodimus had already finished his rounds for the day, and his Autotroopers had been sent home with a handful of prisoners who, unlike Drift, would actually be given the chance to stand trial for the, frankly, absurd list of crimes charged against each of them.  This was no way to run a planet, but for the moment Rodimus had no means of meaningful change. All he could do was wait for Red Alert to arrive. By his count, that would be any minute now.

He cast a glance away from the open loading dock back to Drift, who was seated unmoving on the floor - if not for the vivid glow to his optics, Rodimus would have thought him dead.  Was helping this former Decepticon really the right thing to do? He claimed that Jazz could vouch for him, but Jazz was off doing who-knew-what on Earth, and in the meantime, there was nothing to go on but the word of a stranger.

_ This is a terrible plan. _

Terrible, yes.  There were so many ways that it could go wrong, and if it did fail, it would fail spectacularly.  Drift could easily bring down Rodimus and anyone else he dragged into this disaster. But it was the right thing to do.  

Rodimus just needed to keep reminding himself of the fact.

Again, he looked back to Drift - lithe frame, sharp racer angles, long legs, striking expression.  While such a frame would fill many with uncouth, even lustful thoughts, for Rodimus, all he could think of were long youthful nights spent watching the stars, fighting back-to-back against an army of training drones, one-sided yet enjoyable conversations, a friendship ended too soon . . . 

He shook his head.  He wasn’t going to let this be about  _ that _ either.

As expected, Red Alert showed up within minutes, her red-and-white, bulky alt mode sliding into the loading bay with ease.  

“I came as soon as I got your message,” she said, transforming back to root mode.  She spared no glance for Rodimus - her optics were on her patient, who no longer appeared to be in a trance.  Drift watched her approach, his hands twitching around guns that weren’t there, legs shifting to run away, though he could barely support his own weight at the moment.

“Oh Primus, what happened to you?” she worried, kneeling down and pulling out a scanner.  “Laser burns across the back of a thigh, moderate fuel leakage, and a caved-in chestplate - not as severe as it could be, and thank your lucky stars for that.”  She put the scanner away, instead pulling a cable from one of her wrists. “Now, please give me your hand, I need to keep track of your vitals as I operate.”

Drift hesitated.  “I -”

“He’s had a rough day,” Rodimus jumped in, scurrying closer.  “I imagine he’s none-too-keen to let anyone read his - well, anything right now.”

Red Alert fixed Rodimus an unreadable look.  “Yes, I understand,” she said with an irritated edge to her voice, “but I’m not here to turn anyone in.  I simply need to work.”

Before the situation could escalate, Drift shoved out his arm, allowing her to connect, though Rodimus didn’t miss the downcast look in his eye as he did so.  Here was a mech trying very hard to distance himself from the present; Rodimus didn’t blame him.

As always, Red Alert worked quickly and efficiently, patching Drift’s leg, hammering his chest back into shape, and shoving a cube of medgrade into his hands without sparing a word more than necessary.  She’d always had a cold bedside manner, but she seemed particularly uncomfortable working with Drift, a fact that the Decepticon no doubt picked up on. 

“I’ll subspace you over a few more cubes.  I want you to drink one cube every hour for the rest of the day.  No other fluids. Make sure to tell Rodimus if you have any adverse effects.”

“Understood.”

“And now Rodimus, a word.”  She crawled to her feet and brushed past Rodimus, into a storage closet.  He was helpless but to follow.

“You can help us, right?”  Rodimus said as he closed the door behind him.  He didn’t feel great about leaving Drift on his own, but even with his leg patched up, he probably wouldn’t make it far should he choose to run.

“You’re asking a lot of me, Rodimus.  I don’t have to tell you that if we’re caught, all of us are going to prison.”

“You don’t have to help, if you don’t want to,” Rodimus said.  “You’ve done more than enough already. But I would love it if you did.  Your alt mode was made to transport bots. It would be the easiest way to smuggle him out of here.”

For a long moment, Red Alert said nothing, instead making herself busy, fiddling with some of the tools she’d pulled from a nearby shelf.  

“Red?”

“Look,” she said at last, squeezing a screwdriver tight in her hand.  “I haven’t heard from you in months. You’ve been sick, I understand, and after what happened, I don’t blame you for trying to keep your distance . . .” she trailed off, as though reliving the horrors of that day herself.

“Red?”

She slammed the screwdriver back down on the shelf.  “I’m worried about you. Terrified. You barely made back to Cybertron alive - your body is in terrible shape still; you need to avoid stress at all costs.  And here you are, throwing yourself on the sword for the first pair of pretty optics and long legs that crosses your path.”

“It’s not like that!”

“Oh, I know what it’s like,” she shot back, narrowing her eyes.  “I know exactly why you’re helping him, and I don’t like it. It’s - it’s not healthy.”

“He needed help, Red.  You weren’t there. Those Autotroopers were gonna kill him.  No trial, no chance to prove his innocence. He says that he’s a turncoat - that he helped us back during the war.  He doesn’t deserve to die for doing the right thing.”

“Provided he’s telling the truth.”

“Well, yes, provided he’s telling the truth,” Rodimus admitted.

Red Alert shook her head, a heavy sigh escaping her slender frame.  “I just - I don’t think you should be putting yourself into such danger.  Not for a -”

“Decepticon?” Rodimus finished, a frown on his lips.  He knew full-well why Red Alert would have a problem with harboring a Decepticon, but she’d always been so just in the past.  He’d hoped she’d understand.

Red Alert glared.  “For a  _ stranger _ .”

Was that truly what she’d meant?  Rodimus couldn’t say, but it was a weak argument.  “I have to do what’s right. Even if it’s dangerous.  I’m not going to let someone suffer for no reason.”

Again, Red Alert fell silent.  She grabbed the screwdriver again, engrossed, as though it was suddenly the most interesting thing in the world.  “Where do you want me to take him?”

“What?”

“You have a safe house in mind, right?  Something nearby? I don’t see us getting past checkpoints with a Decepticon convict in my cab, doesn’t matter if you are a Prime.”

Rodimus hadn’t considered it.  Drift hadn’t been forthcoming on any locations he felt safe returning to, and Red Alert’s observation certainly did limit their options.

“We’ll take him to my place.”

“To your place?” Red Alert scoffed.  “You can’t be serious.”

Rodimus shrugged.  “It’s the best I’ve got for the time being.  It’s a few miles away, but it’s still District Six, so we shouldn’t have any trouble getting there.  And honestly, I can’t think of anyone else in the area I’d trust with this mission, so my place it is.”

“If you insist,” Red Alert sighed, again putting the screwdriver down.  “It’s clear I can’t convince you otherwise, so I may as well at least try to keep you from getting yourself killed.”

That was all there was to say on the matter.  Red Alert, however reluctantly, was on board with the plan, and that was all Rodimus needed.  From there, he finished up some last-minute duties and left the racetrack from the normal entrance, where Red Alert was waiting for him, Drift safely sequestered away in her cab.  From there, it was a short drive across the city to Rodimus’s condo, and although there was no good way to smuggle Drift the short distance from the street to inside, they met no difficulty in doing so.

Red Alert accompanied the pair all the way to the elevator.  Her eyes never left Drift once, from the moment he emerged from her cab onward, though Drift was unlikely to have noticed, given how pointedly he was looking at the floor.  

“This is as far as I go,” said Red Alert, still unwilling to step down from her role of bodyguard.  “I do hope you know what you’re doing, Rodimus.”

“Don’t I always?” Rodimus laughed.  It wasn’t a very funny joke; both of them knew as much.

“Yes, well.  Good luck. Call me if you need anything.”  And that was it. The elevator arrived, and Red Alert left, her walk slow, poised, and carefully devoid of emotion.  Rodimus hated seeing her like that - hated that he’d just put one of his last remaining friends in such danger. He hoped it really was for a good cause.

It was a short elevator ride to Rodimus’s apartment, and Drift remained withdrawn all the way up, saying nothing, his eyes still on the floor.  That wouldn’t do at all.

“Hey,” said Rodimus, “are you alright?”

“Not really, no,” Drift admitted.  “But I’ll get through it. I always do.”

Try as he might, Rodimus couldn’t think of a tactful reply, so he let the matter drop.  Thankfully, the ding of the elevator made for a good change in subject. “Ah, here we are!  Come on, right this way.” Without thinking, he took Drift’s hand and led him from the gilded elevator and down the elegant hallway beyond.  “It’s this one, right here.” He pressed a hand to the scanner beside door ‘443’ and the two strode into the room, one with far more confidence than the other.

Once inside, Drift finally managed to pull his eyes from the floor.  It seemed curiosity was a nice motivator. Rodimus, however, felt an immediate sense of shame.  The house was barren and unkempt - Rodimus simply hadn’t been up to dusting and polishing and filling the place with the sort of comforts a guest might require.  He didn’t even have any furniture beyond his bed, seated off to the side of the main room, and his work desk, hidden away in his office. Primus, why hadn’t he thought about such things before inviting Drift to live with him?

_ It’s not like there was much choice in the matter. _

To his credit, Drift didn’t seem offended by the lackluster surroundings.  He was looking at the pictures on the wall - Rodimus with his unit, his friends.  Rodimus with his old minor, Kup. Rodimus’s Academy graduation picture. His gaze lingered on that last one for a particularly long time.

“Sorry there isn’t much here,” Rodimus admitted.  “I guess a Prime should probably have a more impressive house, but I’ve been off-world for most of my career, so I haven’t really had a chance to well - even think about domesticity or whatever.  Right now, it’s mostly just what you see, a whole lotta nothing in every room. Though the washracks are over that-a-way,” he gestured down the hall; Drift followed the motion. “My office is over  _ that _ -a-way,” he gestured in the same direction, though with an added wave to indicate the door on the left side of the hall.  “Oh, and you can find the energon cupboard over this-a-way,” he scooted around the perimeter of the room, coming to a stop at a large cupboard buried in a corner.  “Feel free to help yourself if you get hungry; I can replace whatever you take - no problem, though Red Alert probably wants you to finish that stuff she gave you first.”

Drift was frowning.  Rodimus didn’t like that.  He knew his house was nothing to write home about; Drift was probably used to more.  He’d had a pretty successful run in the races, from what Rodimus could tell. A bot with that much skill was probably swimming in luxuries.  “Um, sorry it’s not much. Feel free to let me know if you need anything. Like I said, I haven’t spent much time here, so there’s not a lot to do.”

“It smells sickly in here,” Drift noted, without making eye contact.  It was a strange thing to say; Rodimus may not have done the best job of keeping the place pristine, but he certainly didn’t smell anything out of order.  Before he could protest, Drift added, “and like sorrow.” The stranger turned to him, a pitying look in his eye. “Are you really alright with me staying here?  It seems like you must have been through much lately.”

Rodimus’s protest died on his lips.  Drift wasn’t complaining; he was worried.  About Rodimus, no less. The concern of this stranger left him feeling suddenly self-conscious.  His house wasn’t good enough, but not for any of the reasons Rodimus had feared. It was Rodimus’s own ineptitudes which Drift had somehow picked up on.

“I - um - yeah, I guess that makes sense,” he mumbled, before taking a seat on the bed.  There was no getting around this. “You see, I . . .” No, that was too casual. “The truth is . . .” And that was too dramatic.  Rodimus’s fingers began to dig into the smooth surface beneath them, as he struggled for the right way to share memories he didn’t even want to admit to himself.  To his surprise, Drift sat down next to him - not so close as to be uncomfortable, but it felt nice to have another presence at his side. How long had it been?

“You don’t have to share if you don’t want to.  We’re barely acquaintances; I have no right to your secrets.”

“It’s not exactly a secret,” Rodimus snorted.  “I just finished recovering from a case of cosmic rust - it’s not contagious anymore,” he hastily added, before Drift could get the wrong impression.  “I was . . . I was off planet on military business, and we got jumped by a unit of Cons.” He paused, waiting to see if Drift would react to that, but a chance glance at his face revealed nothing more than a too-serious bot who was listening intently.  Rodimus was quick to avert his gaze; he couldn’t look into the eyes of a stranger and share the rest of the story. “We lost a lot of good mechs up there - my - well, it doesn’t matter now.” He barely wanted to admit what had happened back on that asteroid, least of all to a stranger.  It was better to keep some things close. “But I got out - with a nice case of Cosmic Rust courtesy of some creep with his head in a jar.”

“Oil Slick,” Drift muttered, more to himself.

“I don’t care what his name is!” Rodimus hissed jerking back to his feet.  He was done talking about this. But once up, off the bed, he took pause. Drift had been through a lot already today, he didn’t need to be yelled at for things that had nothing to do with him.  When Rodimus turned back to face his guest, Drift’s eyes were on the floor, his slight frame was hunched in, as though he were expecting to be struck. It was a sorry sight, and one that made Rodimus feel like a monster.  “I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I shouldn’t have yelled.”

“No, you’re right,” Drift replied, without looking up.  “It wasn’t my business to make any comments. I am . . .” he trailed off, his own fingers clutching at the edge of the bed, “sorry for your loss.”

Again, Rodimus grew cold.  He turned away once more, his stare intently fixed on the picture of his graduating class - so many dead faces.  Was there nowhere he could turn without being plagued by horrible memories? He offlined his optics.

“Let just change the subject,” he said.  This time, when he turned to face Drift, he was smiling.  The smile was fake, of course, but Rodimus was a professional faker.  He had years of experience lying with his face; some nervous stranger wasn’t about to see through this one.  “Let’s talk about you.”

“Me?” Drift stammered, looking up, his eyes wide and terrified.

“What to expect from here on in - at least until this whole Decepticon mess gets settled.”

“Oh, of course.”  Drift resumed his previous pose, appearing lost, fragile.  It seemed an ill fit for a Decepticon.  _ Ex-Decepticon,  _ he corrected.

“I am opening my house to you, voluntarily.  You are welcome here for as long as you need to call this . . . humble dwelling home.  However, I’m afraid that - well - you don’t have much choice in the matter. I need you to stay here.  Hidden. No sneaking out for races, or shopping sprees, or because you’re stircrazy and need to get up and move.”  His own Speedster frame cringed at the thought of it. Confinement was the worst when every core instinct urged you to get up and run.  Drift, for his part, gave no indication that he would reject these terms, but it was difficult to tell with his face obscured as it was.

“I know it won’t be easy,” Rodimus continued, “believe me, it’s been my life for the past couple lunar cycles.  It’s no way for a Speedster to live, and I promise that I will do my best to minimize the time you’re stuck here for.  But until Jazz comes back to vouch for you, the word of that Autotrooper will trump any protest from you, or even me. That is, unless there’s anyone else you can think of?”

Drift considered this for a moment.  A very long moment. Rodimus was beginning to wonder whether he intended to answer at all.  But at last, he did come around, albeit with an air of confusion about his words.

“I . . . didn’t really go around sharing my secret with people.  Jazz knew, of course, and he introduced me to Master Yoketron, who . . . helped me come to terms with . . . a lot of things.”  His fingers clenched and unclenched against the bed.

“Drift?”

Drift forced his hands flat, and finally, brought his gaze up to meet Rodimus’s.  His was an expression that Rodimus could not parse, but it did not seem to belong to a bot who was entirely well.  “But after he died . . . no. No one else knew.”

“No one?” Rodimus repeated.  He didn’t want it to be true.  For both of their sakes. He didn’t know when Jazz would be back (or if), and as much as he wanted to help this mech, keeping him a prisoner in this miserable place was bound to turn sour eventually.  “None of the other Elite Guardsmechs? Or what about - surely someone must have . . . been around when you defected?” Come to think of it, what  _ was _ this mech’s story?  Rodimus wasn’t about to pry right now, but he made note to bring it up later, once Drift was in a better state of mind.

Drift considered this.  “It’s hard to remember, it was so long ago, and the operation did a number on my processor, so a lot of things from that period are kinda fuzzy.”

“Operation?”

For the first time since their arrival, Drift’s mouth twisted upward in what was almost a smile.  “What, you think they make Decepticons that look like this?” He gestured at his frame. His Velocitronian Speedster frame.

“Sorry, dumb question,” Rodimus laughed, though he didn’t find anything about the situation humorous.  “But if you were transplanted into an Autobot frame, then surely someone must have been around to do the transplanting?”

Drift considered this too, leaning forward, his gaze fixed on the opposite wall.  “I . . . maybe. I don’t really remember.”

Then it couldn’t be helped.  They would have to wait for Jazz after all.  Rodimus was even about to say as much when Drift spoke again.

“I think . . . there was something.  A mech - he had a strange way of speaking.”

“Strange?  How so?”

Drift narrowed his eyes, as though trying with all his might to force the image of this mystery mech from the deepest corners of his memory.  “I - no - I must have imagined it. Or I was glitching.” He shook his head. “Sorry.”

But Rodimus wasn’t satisfied.  “No, I’m curious now. There was a mech who spoke kinda funny?”

“No, not funny,” Drift corrected.  “There was nothing funny about him.  There was nothing anything about him, actually.”  He paused, considering what he’d just said with a frown.  “What I mean is, he just - he didn’t seem to speak with any emotions?”  He shook his head. “I mean, that sounds dumb. I probably just imagined it.”

“Maybe not,” Rodimus said, considering Drift’s words.  They were vague, sure, but Rodimus knew one mech who very definitely spoke without any hint of emotion in his voice, and that mech also happened to be head of the science guild.  It wasn’t a stretch to imagine that Perceptor might know a thing or two about Drift. “I’ve got someone in mind, based on that description. I can look into it. The sooner we can get you your freedom back, the better, I think.

“In the meantime, you should get some rest.  You’ve had a big day, and you really do need to focus all your energy on recovery.  With any luck, I can get this sorted out in a day or two, and we can get you back to your own house and life.”  He made to leave to his office, to give his guest some privacy. Also, he didn’t feel thrilled about the prospect of conducting business affairs with an alleged Decepticon in the same room, but surprisingly, Drift bolted to his feet the second he’d finished talking.  His head was hung again, his fists were clenched, and he was definitely not putting any weight on his injured leg. It was an awkward posture and a strange thing to do.

“Drift?”

“I was wondering, sir, where I am to sleep.”

Was that it?

“It’s okay if you go ahead and take that berth.  You need it more than I do right now.”

Drift, however, shook his head.  “That’s unacceptable, sir! You’ve already been generous enough to put me up!  I’m not going to impose any further than I already have.”

Rodimus nearly laughed.  Would have, if this adorable bot wasn’t also so very frustrating.  “It’s okay, Drift. I don’t really have any other furniture that you could -”

“That’s even more of a reason for you to sleep in the bed!”

What a strange hill to die on.  Rodimus wasn’t sure how long he’d be able to keep up the fight.  “Drift, you’re injured. You need to recover. And I need to work.  It really is okay. I don’t need to sleep in a bed. It’s a luxury I’m not exactly used to anyway.”  He’d hoped it would work. He didn’t have anything else to go on. 

Unfortunately, Drift was unswayed.  “And I am the same. A bed is a nice luxury, but it is not one I need, believe me.  I will be perfectly content on the floor.”

“Drift, I can’t let you do that.”

“And you also can’t force me to sleep in your bed.”

Rodimus supposed that was true, at least.  He couldn’t argue with that. “Very well then.  Sleep wherever you want, just - y’know - actually sleep.”

And so, with a defiant smile on his face, Drift marched over to a corner of the room, and sank down to the floor, his back pressed to the wall, his long legs folded over one another.  It didn’t look very comfortable, but Rodimus had no doubt that the mech had indeed had worse over the years. Somehow, Rodimus found himself smiling at the sight.

“Sleep well, Drift.”  He turned his back, ready to leave the room, to call some contacts, do some digging in the archives, but a small voice stopped him.

“Thank you.”

Rodimus paused in the doorway, feeling lighter than he had in months.  “Don’t mention it,” he grinned before slipping out into the hallway.

When Rodimus had woken up that morning, he’d been a shell, getting by in a world that no longer held any meaning.  He hadn’t expected to ever feel happy again, and he certainly hadn’t expected that he’d be coming home that evening with an Ex-Decepticon in hiding smuggled away in Red Alert’s cab.  It was a welcome change. For the first time in months, his life had meaning. Here was an innocent spark in need of protection, who was relying on Rodimus for survival, and ever the hero at heart, Rodimus was eager to play the part.  

Still, whether it was a side effect of his time spent living on Sentinel’s Cybertron, or of his last encounter with Decepticons, Rodimus couldn’t help but feel the tiniest trace of doubt.  If his hero-complex had led him astray again, if Drift really wasn’t the victim he claimed to be, then Rodimus may well lead Cybertron to ruin. Was this really the right thing to do? 

Rodimus shook his head, banishing the thought back to the ether.  Of course helping Drift was the right thing to do. It had to be. 


End file.
